How you steal a road ……… Manchester Road in Chorlton

Now, Manchester Road is one of our ancient roads.

Manchester Road, 1854

It twisted and turned through the township from High Lane through Martledge and out across open land to The Flash where it joined  a footpath to Hulme. *

Later still in 1838, Samuel Brooks cut his own private road from Brooks Bar along the route of that footpath  and in the process utilized the Black Brook which ran beside the old footpath “as a main sewer for his property which he drained into the watercourse”.**

But given that this new swanky road which we now know as Upper Chorlton Road, was the private property of Mr. Brooks, it is more likely that those wanting to leave the village would take another route from Manchester Road along Seymour Grove, which for most of its existence was “nothing more than an old lane or rough cart road with deep ditches at each side, overshadowed by trees, and used chiefly by the farmers and foot passengers of the village”.***

Manchester Road, date unknown

All of which means Manchester Road might well be seen as one of our “superhighways”, and as such the casual traveller would have lots to see on a trip from the village out towards The Flash.

At the junction with High Lane and Edge Lane the land was slightly higher than the surrounding, and on the site of what is now Stockton Range was a fine house which was popularly called the Glass House which was known as Pitts Brow, and during the early 19th century was regarded as the most attractive spot in the whole township.

A little further was an old ash tree which lent its name to the spot just past the church, which dates from the 1870s, when the Methodists built their third place of worship, adding a large Sunday School building a decade later.

Beyond this the road snaked out to Red Gates Farm, which now sits under Chorlton Library and on to the Flash.

The bit they stole, Manchester Road, 1960s

In the 1860s the Egerton estate cut a new road running from Edge Lane via Chorlton to Fallowfield in the expectation that by opening up a direct route from Stretford to Wilmslow Road it would stimulate development in the area, which it did.

Despite crossing Manchester Road, this new Egerton highway  had little impact on our road.

But not so the planners of the 20th century, who in their grand plan to build a shopping precinct here in Chorlton, stole a stretch of Manchester Road for a car park.

The result was the loss of some grand houses which lined this bit of the road and the severing of our ancient thoroughfare.

Next; that mystery water course

Location; Chorlton

Pictures;  detail of Manchester Road from the OS for Lancashire 1854, courtesy of Digital Archives Association, http://www.digitalarchives.co.uk/ Manchester Road, date unknown and the bit they stole, 1960s, from the collection of Ida Bradshaw


*The Flash is the spot where Manchester Road joins Seymour Grove and Upper Chorlton Road, and became known as West Point.

**Ellwood, Thomas, Chapter 6, Roads, The History of Chorlton-cum-Hardy, South Manchester Gazette, December 12, 1885

***ibid Ellwood, chapter 6

Of Waterloo sunsets, Peckham Rye and the Pleasuance at Well Hall

Now it is just one of those things that you miss where you grew up.

Coming home, 2013

It is such an obvious statement but is none the less true.

I left south east London in 1969 for Manchester unsure what was ahead of me but convinced that I would be back, but like most plans it never happened.

Manchester is where I ended up, got married bought a house and brought up four kids.

In my twenties I can’t say I missed London and I guess it wasn’t until quite recently, long after I qualified for a concessionary bus pass and reached an age to be rewarded with the being offered a seat on the tram that I began to think of home.

Well Hall, 2011

And home really only begins when the ferry docks or the  train pulls across the river into Waterloo and then I know I am back.

Another 20 or so minutes later and after the train has taken that curve I have arrived home in Eltham.

But then because we moved around, the train could quite easily have taken me to Queens Road or New Cross and because for a long time our Elizabeth lived in Plumstead and Woolwich there was that other set of railway stations.

My kids always know which special song to play for me and ever since I first heard Waterloo Sunset it has been my tune, with a special meaning given that Kay and I would meet every Friday night under that clock.

Ten years earlier Waterloo Station would be one of the destinations along with London Bridge which would be the start of an adventure.

Woolwich, 2015

For with 2/6d pocket money and aged just ten there were lots of places you could go for a modest return fare and still have change for a variety of sweets.

Sometimes you struck gold and on other occasions you ended up in a dreary back street beside a canal with grim tall buildings all around you.

But that didn’t matter because the fun was in the expectation of where you might go and once there roaming across the city in search of anything that looked interesting.

And there were the bombsites which were still pretty much in evidence all around us.  Most of the time there wasn’t much to discover, but once we found a gas mask still in its box with the green paint and black rubber looking brand new.

Woolwich, circa 1940s

And then there was the old bombed church of St Mary’s which was a place where with a shared candle  a group of you could wander through the crypt anticipating all sorts of horrors and finding only a damp and smelly mattress.

Some adventures turned out not so well, like the time me, Jimmy O’Donnel and John Cox having walked from Lausanne Road to Greenwich, took the wrong turning by the entrance to the foot tunnel and instead of standing on the sand in front of the Naval College we turned left walked amongst the barges and sank up to our ankles in oily Thames mud.

To this day I remain ashamed that I blamed the other two when mother interrogated me on arriving home.

Worse than the interrogation was the bath that followed which seemed to take hours and involved much scrubbing to remove the dried mud from me and even longer to make my shoes half decent.

Today those trips are less perilous but no less fun and often involve a brief visit to an old haunt like the Pleasaunce at Well Hall which is only a few minute’s walk from our old house.

Cambden Church, 1904

Of course I am well aware that the places of my youth have changed and as in the case of Woolwich pretty dramatically but I don’t subscribe to that throw away judgement that places I knew are “now rubbish”, they are just different and no doubt there would be those catapulted into the 21st century from 1900 who would mourn the passing of the “smoke hole” at Woolwich and wish there were two lanes of traffic forcing their way down Powis Street.

I suppose for those of us who leave it is always a bit odd to be confronted with the disappearance of all our childhood memories.

That said I never tire of Waterloo Sunset or arriving south over the river.

Location; south of the river

Pictures from the collection of Andrew Simpson, Scott MacDonald and Elizabeth and Collin Fitzpatrick and Steve Bardrick, Camden Church Peckham Road, circa 1904, Albert Flint Photographer and Publisher, 68 Church Street, Camberwell in the series Camberwell, marked by Tuck and Sons, and reproduced courtesy of Tuck DB, https://tuckdb.org/

A little bit of gentle humour in 1903

Now I thought about digging out a Victorian Christmas card given the date, but I have done those already in the past and anyway Christmas is pretty much covered where ever you look, so instead here is a gentle bit of fun.

It dates from around 1903 and was sold not only here in Britain but also in the U.S.A, and Canada.

And before I upset Karl who delievers our mail I shall just reiterate that the Post Office has never let us down.

Picture;  URGENT, BY SPECIAL MESSENGER from the series, comic sketches, marketed by Tuck and sons, 1903, courtesy of Tuck DB, http://tuckdb.org/

Christmas with the Lion …………..

The comic annual has a long history.

They were produced for the Christmas market and were a mix of the favourite stories and articles drawn from the weekly comic.

For me, its golden age was in the 1950s, and the preeminent comic book was the Eagle, with its companions, Girl, Swift and Robin.

That said there were others, and of these I suppose I was most drawn to the Lion, which like its weekly comic version was a less sophisticated product than the Eagle.

The artwork was cruder, the size of the comic smaller and some of the stories lacked the detail of my Eagle.

But I never quite forgot the Lion, and yesterday three of the annuals were sent to me by Steve.

They are dated, 1954, 1955, and 1956, and of the three it is the last that struck me most because it was the one I was given.

Who gave me the book I can’t remember, but as Dad and mum always bought me the Eagle, I guess it was an uncle.

Looking through the 1956 annual, I recognize the stories and can vividly recall some of them, and more than a few of the individual pictures.

The key stories were those that would appeal to any 1950s lad, of which space, knights in armour and westerns predominated.

I must confess back then and even now I preferred the strip cartoons and avoided those stories which were all print.

Like Eagle, the Lion annual had a its share of factual material which in 1956 included “When the Romans went Chariot Racing, “Wonders of Outer Space”, and the “World Wide Quiz”.

But there was less of it than in Eagle, and the themes were far more Eurocentric.

Added to which the books felt cheaper, partly because of the poorer quality paper that was used.

There will be those who think I am being a tad unfair and flicking through the 1954 annual there was a fascinating account of what life on the Moon might be like, which makes interesting reading sixty five years after it was written and just fifteen before the first moon landing.

And the three annuals are of their time, which rather makes them history books in their own right, and so I shall close with the "Picture Parade of Facts Near and Far", with the account of robot made by a boy in the USA and the one I vividly remember when during “a football match was in progress between two fire brigade teams at Liverpool, a cry of FIRE! Rang out.  The game stopped abruptly, and everyone looked for the fire.  It was in a player’s pocket, where a box of matches had burst into flame”.

Now that has to be very 1950s.

But having renewed an old acquitance, I happily turned to my old friend the Eagle, and spent an happy half hour.

Location; the 1950s










Pictures; from the covers of the Lion Annuals, 1954-1956 and the Eagle annual, 1956 from the collection of Andrew Simpson

Suggestions for a Christmas present and an outrageous piece of self promotion ........ nu 2 Didsbury Through Time

Now very soon lots of you will be pondering on Christmas presents and so with that in mind here is the second suggestion.

Day two and Didsbury Through Time, a book designed to take you across the old township from east to west with a mix of old photographs, original paintings by Peter Topping and lots of stories from me of the lives of the people who lived behind the doors of the posh and the humble houses.

Here is the tale young Bertha Geary who heard the Flying Man and of odd goings on down at the Devils Gate and much more.

Available from us at http://www.pubbooks.co.uk/ or Chorlton Book shop, 506 Wilbraham Road, Chorlton-cum-Hardy, Manchester M21 9AW 0161 881 6374 info@chorltonbookshop.co.uk.
& E J Morton the bookshop, 6 Warburton St, Manchester M20 6WA 0161 445 7629

Post early for Christmas ...... to a place in the 1950s

Now I think the Post Office must do things differently from when I was growing up in the 1950s.

Back then delightful and innovative posters appeared every year in the run up to Christmas.

And this is one I like.  

It comes from the collection of David Harrop who collects all things posty and thinks it dates from the 1950s.

A trawl of GPO sites didn’t advance my research and so the 1950s it is.

Today a quick flick through the internet will offer up the details of the last dates to send letters, cards and parcels to every part of the globe.

But back in the 1950s we did indeed do things differently, and posters like this were on display in Post Offices and probably other public places.

And I seem to recall as the 1950s slid into the next decade that information began appearing on the telly, with a mix of serious public announcements with rather silly ones delivered in the form of a cartoon.

And that is all I am going to say.

Location; the 1950s

Picture; Post Early, circa 1950s, from the collection of David Harrop

Suggestions for a Christmas present and an outrageous piece of self promotion ........ nu 1 Hough End Hall

Now very soon lots of you will be pondering on Christmas presents and so with that in mind over the week here are some suggestions.

Day One and Hough End Hall The Story, written by me with original paintings by Peter Topping this book tells the story of 400 years of the hall’s history from posh place, to farm house and finally a restaurant and the promise of something more.

Here are stories not only of the people of plenty but all those who have passed through in those four centuries.

But buyer beware. It was published in 2014 and while the last chapter has been eclipsed by events the rest of the history stands.

Available from us at http://www.pubbooks.co.uk/ Chorlton Book shop, 506 Wilbraham Road, Chorlton-cum-Hardy, Manchester M21 9AW 0161 881 6374